NAME

qonk - Small build-and-conquer strategy game with very simple rules

SYNOPSIS

qonk [numberofplanets] [numberofAIplayers]

DESCRIPTION

This manual page was written for the Debian(TM) distribution because
the original program does not have a manual page. Most of the text is
taken verbatim from the author´s webpage.
qonk is a small build-and-conquer strategy game with very simple rules.
A complete game only lasts for a few minutes and can be a fun break
away from work or whatever you´re doing.
The setting of the game is a solar system of planets. Your goal is to
conquer all of the planets in the game by sending ships there. Planets
that are under your control generate new ships. Simple AI players are
playing against you. As you gain more experience throughout the game,
more AI players have to be kicked out of bigger solar systems.
The game is currently very much in beta. The game engine itself is
fully functional. A lot of things have to be added to make this a
mature game (like menus and stuff), but since the engine itself works,
Qonk is already very playable.
Although the game engine is prepared to run under different modes, the
game always defaults to 1024x768 resolution, and goes into fullscreen
modus to run qonk. (because of beta status)

OPTIONS

In order to change between levels, the game had to exit and parameters
for the game and its level had to be entered from the command line. A
small modification have been introduced for making this automatically.
Nevertheless, you can always start in any level you prefer.
Qonk can be given two numeric parameters, the first denoting the number
of planets in the solar system, the second gives the number of enemy AI
players. Successive levels of the game are defined by two such
parameters.
numberofplanets
Total number of planets in the solar system.
numberofAIplayers
The number of enemy AI players you will compete with.

HOWTOPLAY

You select ships and send them out to planets, to attack or fortify
them. A ship that arrives at an enemy planet dies and kills an enemy
ship, residing on that planet, along with it. If no enemy ships are
based on the planet, you take over the planet. Planets under your
control grow new ships for you to send around.
You control white planets and white ships. Colored planets belong to
the opponent players. Gray planets are not controled by a player and
can easily be conquered, once its resident neutral ships are destroyed
(about 2-4 of them on each neutral planet).
There are two types of planets in the solar system. There are planets
orbiting around the "sun" and moons orbiting around the planets. There
are as many moons as planets in each solar system. Some planets may
have more moons than others. A planet is expected to generate twice as
many ships as a moon in the same amount of time. Some planets/moons
build ships more quickly than others. Each ship also has a random
speed.
Select ships by dragging your left mouse button. A ship can only be
selected for an action if it resides on a planet. Use the right mouse
button to send selected ships to the nearest planet to the mouse
pointer. If you want to select all of the available ships, press A.
As you conquer more planets, more ships are built in parallel. Try to
conquer as many planets as possible, so that many new ships are
constructed and you can reign over the solar system.
There are some extra keys that can be used:
E
While pressing E, the ships of enemy players are shown, so this is
kind of a cheat button.
P
Pause and unpause the game.
S
Save a screenshot (screenshot.bmp) of the game.

PLAYERRANKING

The rank of a player is not only based on the number of planets the
player possesses, but also on the number of ships. A planet gives a
player 2 points, a moon gives 0.999 points, and each ship adds another
1/3 of a point. A moon is thus worth just under 3 ships. Players with
the highest amount of points rank highest.